


Half Off Candy Day

by VerboseWordsmith



Category: Batgirl (Comics), DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Awesome Ladies Being Awesome, Canon Disabled Character, College, F/F, Failboats In Love, Female Friendship, Femslash, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 15:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerboseWordsmith/pseuds/VerboseWordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Batgirl spends yet another holiday working a case, but at least there's a bright side: all the Valentine's Day candy will be half off in the morning.</p><p>Or, the one where Steph and Wendy haven't realized they're dating yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half Off Candy Day

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Sarah for the beta

Stephanie crouched on the roof of the Lexington and Wells branch of Gotham First Savings and took a breather. She'd already broken up a brawl and had just chased a wannabe mugger half a dozen blocks in between tailing her target and was feeling all the roof hopping. Winter, in her experience, always made patrol drag on longer and take more out of her. There was a bodega across the street and she had longing thoughts about hot coffee and some kind of delicious carb-heavy snack.

"The dudebro muscle isn't moving," Proxy said in Steph's ear. "No idea if he's getting take out or meeting a date or something, but it's been like ten minutes and nothing. I'll give it another ten and if he's not moving I'll take over monitoring and you can patrol normally."

"Oh goody," Steph said. "That wasn't sarcastic, it's cold and I want to move. I hate winter."

"You've told me," Proxy said with a hint of exasperation. "In detail. Almost every night since Halloween."

"Hey, at least I'm not complaining about the suit sticking, heat stroke and epically bad cowl hair," Steph said.

"Yeah, give it a few months," Proxy said. Steph could hear the eyeroll. "Our guy just moved like twenty feet and isn't moving now, I think he's doing dinner with his ladyfriend so you're off the hook for at least an hour. Head over towards Fourth, there were two incident reports so you might need to show some assholes what Batgirl can do."

"Sure," Steph said. She stood and stretched, making sure her muscles were still loose. Her thigh was a little stiff but a few pliés and kicks and it was good again. "What restaurant is our guy at? I don't want to get too far away in case he does something interesting."

"The fusion place next to the Marriott," Proxy said. "Nice, but not too pricey and a little unusual; say what you will about his professional decisions, dude's got pretty good taste in restaurants."

"Seriously?" she asked as she aimed her grapple and shot. The line flew is a perfect arc and caught, Steph tugged the line and then jumped off the building, swinging across the street. She landed a little less than gracefully, but still on her feet (Steph counted it as a win) and released the line's anchor. "Man, this sucks, it's Valentine's Day and even the friggin henchmen get it off and do nice things with their whatevers and we're stuck working."

"Hey, at least there'll be half off chocolate tomorrow," Proxy said. "That's kind of the best part. It's not as good as the day after Halloween or Easter but you can't deny it's the highlight of the month."

"Point," Steph conceded. "I'm going silent until I get back to the Compact."

"Oh thank god," Proxy said. "I was starting to think you'd never shut up, I just found two new mashups and I need to know if they're as awesome as they sound."

Steph grinned to herself as she took off, running and jumping for the next building. Only Wendy. She was kind of the best and worst mission control ever.

***

Wendy rolled from the Firewall's kitchenette to her main workstation. She made another mental note to check the budget for some slush fund money for a new microwave. Steph, in her infinite blondeness, had picked up dinner from the good Mexican place near the South Quad and then reheated Wendy's quesadilla and her burrito while they were still wrapped up in foil. They'd ended up eating pizza while Steph made plans for the microwave's funeral. That was over a week ago and she was getting tired of making everything in the electric kettle.

Well, really she was getting tired of Steph forgetting to wash it out after she made oatmeal or SpaghettiOs for breakfast and then getting tomato or fake maple flavored coffee. Wendy was never going to let Steph take an 8am class ever again. At least not while Red Robin and Nightwing were both fighting with Boss Bat and working in different cities. It'd be nice if the boys would show a little consideration and deal with their dating drama or whatever it was instead of flouncing off and sticking the full-time college student with three vigilantes' worth of work. Steph was Bat _girl_ , not Batman or Oracle.

Speaking of which—

One of the monitors showed a steady feed of a pool hall. Very steady—

"Hey BG?" Wendy asked. "You still awake?"

"Yeah," Batgirl said. She sounded exhausted and Wendy frowned. "I'm good. I hit one of Red Robin's caches and stole some of his caffeine. I'm trying to decide if it's worth heading in there or not."

"Probably not," Wendy said. "You sound pretty dead and yeah okay, Frankie Torino's boys are in there, but they'll be in there tomorrow night and the night after. They always need a reminder that they're assholes and you can kick their ass, but it can wait."

"Good enough for me," Batgirl said. "I want to head through part of Nightwing's territory—"

It's your territory now, Wendy thought furiously. Yours and everyone knows it and you do a damn good job with it.

"—and then I'll head home. See if I can crash a bit before class."

"Sounds like a plan," Wendy said. "I'm still here if you need me, I expect you to tell me you're home and going to be sleeping in like an hour and a half tops. Got it?"

"Yes, Proxy," Batgirl said sarcastically. "Of course, Proxy. I exist to do your bidding."

"Damn straight you do," Wendy said. She minimized Steph's maskcam and went back to updating her gang activity database and the interactive map. Steph was covering large sections of Gotham right now and needed all the help Wendy could offer. Steph needed to have accurate information and meticulously planned patrol routes to maximize her effectiveness and help disguise how short-handed the Bats were.

***

It was almost seven when Steph finally wrapped up patrol. An attempted mugging in Dick's territory had turned into a successful murder; the would-be mugger pulled out a gun and she hadn't been fast enough to take him out before he shot at point-blank range. She'd tackled him and gotten him cuffed with a couple zip strips and spent a good two hours or so talking to the police. At least the second cop who'd showed up after she'd called it in had realized Batgirl's involvement meant Gage or Montoya had to be called in, if not the Commissioner himself. Steph was just grateful that the detectives and the DA's office had finally worked out some kind of protocol to deal with Bat-witnesses (Steph was pretty sure they're borrowed heavily from Star City's policies for the Arrows). Anything to help serve justice, keep her anonymity and shorten her interviews with the police.

Steph took off as soon as Gage said they had enough from her. They might need a follow up if the guy tried to plea insanity or managed to get a really good lawyer, but the GCPD knew how to get ahold of her. She indulged in a moment of melodrama once she hit a safe rooftop a few streets over, collapsing into a pile of snow on the roof with a dramatic sigh. It'd been a long night, a week-month-half a year of long nights. She wanted to go home and sleep for approximately forever, or at least a solid twelve hours, but she had class in an hour and a half. She didn't have time to get home and on campus before class started, she desperately needed to eat and get some caffeine, she wanted a shower and—

"Chocolate," Steph told the snow decisively. "I need chocolate and then I can make plans." The snow didn't have any thoughts on the topic, which was probably a good thing. She'd have to bench herself if she thought weather phenomena were speaking to her again (it was only the one time and in her defense, she had just spent three days helping Klarion deal with a case that was weird even by freaky Limbo Town standards, but Wendy and Babs wouldn't let it go). There were at least three chain pharmacies between her current rooftop and the nearest Bat-owned apartment with clean clothes and some form of dry goods she could turn into breakfast, one of them could have a visit from Batgirl.

Steph popped into the CVS closest to the apartment (Oracle owned this one, which meant it definitely had clothes in Steph's size) and grinned when one of the sleepy cashier's mouthes dropped open. Something about doing normal stuff in Batgirl clothes always amused her and if she played it right, the cape bloggers would be talking about her more than Damian this week and beating Damian was always the sweetest victory. Steph waved and then headed straight to the seasonal aisle. She was early enough that there was still a lot of _good_ candy. Wendy was absolutely right, half off candy day was the best holiday. Steph grabbed a few kinds of chocolate and then on a whim she snagged one of the teddy bears holding a box of dark chocolate. Wendy would appreciate the candy and they could use the bear for target practice, Wendy's batargang aim was still terrible.

"Late Valentine?" the cashier asked when she rang out the bear.

"Half Off Candy Day is a holiday worth celebrating," Steph said. "Plus I'm going to owe my partner in…not crime. Justice? Partner in justice for crashing on her couch today."

"It's um, it's 30% off, actually," the cashier said a little nervously, maybe she thought Steph would beat her up or something? Bruce and Tim both had years invested in making people worry about what kind of mood Batman, Robin and the rest were in so maybe it wasn't surprising.

"I know, but Half Off Candy Day sounds way better than Thirty Percent Off Candy Day," Steph said. "And it was like half off when I was a kid, so. The name stays even if inflation makes it a lie."

The cashier looked a little confused, but she was smiling. Good enough. Steph waved and took her bag of precious chocolately goodness. She had not quite an hour to shower, eat and get halfway across town for class. And then? She was going to sleep forever on Wendy's couch (or at least until Wendy woke her up for pre-patrol food) because Steph was pretty sure her mom had the day off and she'd be awfully curious about why Steph was asleep at three pm.

***

Occasionally the logistics of getting a second undergrad degree in an entirely unrelated field to the first degree made Wendy laugh. Her professors kept talking about how she shouldn't overextend herself and maybe dropping a class or two might be a good idea and she supposed it was well-meaning but mostly it came off condescending and then she really couldn't help but play the graduated from MIT at age seventeen card because then they were just asking for it. The resulting expressions always made her laugh and it was nice to see some of Gotham University's notorious red tape disappear. It'd taken three meetings and a referral to MIT's archives for copies of her senior thesis and advanced project's abstracts but finally the prereqs for Comp Sci and Criminology 422 were being waived for her next semester. She probably hadn't needed to pull out the big guns with the formal request to the archive; she still had all of her MIT stuff floating around on one hard drive or another, but sometimes Wendy didn't feel like jumping through hoops. A petty part of her enjoyed seeing the arrogant prick running the Criminology department shut up and stop judging her for her everything but especially the chair. How the hell Steph put up with the man for half of her major and how he still managed to be a _respected_ researcher with his outdated ideas and prejudices was beyond her.

Wendy was going to count today as a victory. No more meetings about skipping prereqs, no more Professor Dumbass (at least until picking classes out for next spring), and she was one step closer to making the university her metaphorical bitch and let her get a degree in being a superhero information broker. If she was very lucky this would be the last meeting she'd have about hard science prereqs and skipping around the different departments. It totally called for celebration brownies and ice cream. She'd call Steph over for junk food and congratulations later, maybe they'd Skype Babs and bask in her awesome and praise for beating the system again before Steph suited up for patrol.

Huh.

She wouldn't have to call Steph for victory dessert-lunch, because Steph was crashed out on her sofa with the sad little throw blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She looked kind of cold and Wendy wasn't heartless, so she went into her room and grabbed a blanket off the bed. She rolled into what passed for her living room and then realized covering Steph with the blanket was going to be difficult, the coffee table and Steph's overstuffed backpack were in the way. With a shrug she unballed the blanket in her lap and threw it at Steph. She wasn't heartless but Sleeping Beauty could sort her own damn blanket out; Wendy wasn't dealing with the table and the possibly-charged electrogooparangs and whatever else Steph had in her utility belt that Wendy was _sure_ had been hastily shoved into her backpack along with the rest of the Batgirl suit.

She was going to make tea and brownies and Steph could help whenever she was done sleeping the sleep of the overworked and entirely too pretty for the amount of drool she generated.

Something wasn't quite right in the kitchen, but then Wendy spotted a note on the kettle in Steph's loopy handwriting. _I love you beary much for letting me crash here again!_ Wendy's eyes narrowed. Steph loved stupid puns but even for her, that was terrible. And suspicious. She looked around the kitchen again but the note was the only thing out of place. Well, she'd figure it out once she had some tea. Opening the tea drawer, Wendy saw a stupid looking pink bear attached to a box of chocolates and she laughed. She pulled it out and noted that Steph had finally gotten the memo about dark chocolate being superior to all other kinds. Steph had very thoughtfully removed whatever the box had been wrapped in and Wendy popped a chocolate in her mouth, closing her eyes in pleasure as she bit into it.

"Good choice?" Steph asked from behind, sounding a little hoarse with sleep.

"Yeah," Wendy said. "You picked a decent brand. You should still be asleep, Girl Wonder."

"Someone threw a blanket at my head," Steph said and propped a hip on the arm of Wendy's chair. "Can't sleep through that. Gimme," she held a hand out demanding a chocolate. Wendy looked up at her with a raised brow.

"It's my present," she told Steph. "Go buy your own."

"Awww, you didn't get me one?" Steph said with an easy smile. "Baby, I'm hurt, I spent the last two Valentine's with you, we were up talking all night, I thought we had something special!"

"You're a ridiculous person," Wendy said fondly as she swatted Steph's hand away from the chocolate. "Go sleep some more, you need it after keeping me up all night long. Tell me about whatever kept you out later. I'm going to make brownies and if you're a very good girl and follow my orders to go the fuck to sleep, I might let you have half of them."

"You'll let me have them anyway," Steph said confidently. "You never let yourself eat the whole pan and no one else is around enough to eat the rest before they get hard."

'Whatever," Wendy said. She slapped Steph's ass and grinned when she jumped. "Go sleep, seriously. You can crash in my room if you want, it'll be after we do lunch before I'll want to nap for tonight."

***

Steph woke up to the smell of brownies and something poking her in the arm.

"Wha?" she mumbled around the pillow her face was half mashed into.

"Brownies are done and I got sandwiches," Wendy said. "You should get up and eat because I'm gonna guess you only ate a couple protein bars before class this morning."

"Sleep time," Steph insisted. She was mostly awake now but really didn't want to be. Wendy's bed was comfy and much warmer than her couch had been.

"Food time, then sleep time," Wendy insisted. "We might even be bad and not set an alarm for six pm."

Steph sat up for that. Her sleep schedule had been fucked since she was fourteen and running around in a homemade spandex suit but the weeks since the new semester started had been the worst in a few years. Steph made of point of never taking classes before 1 pm (even if it occasionally led to some strange ways to fulfill gen ed requirements and the one semester when she was going straight from a movie screening to patrol) until now and that was because it was literally the only time one of her major requirements was going to be offered for next year and a half. She could handle the disruption to her sleep schedule if she wasn't covering more territory and working more cases than usual, but life or fate or whatever enjoyed screwing with her.

"Seriously, sleeping in?"

"We might even take the night off," Wendy said. "We're no good if we're totally exhausted and I'm feeling generous after crushing several professors' dreams and bending them to my will."

Steph blinked. Sometimes Wendy was a little bit scary-crazy and sometimes it was just her sense of humor. "Your meeting about that class went well?"

"Oh yeah," Wendy said with a big smile. "I'm awesome, the Criminology and Comp Sci departments know it, I'm going to pwn a 400-level I never took the prereqs for."

"That's awesome!' Steph said. "And I'm judging you for speaking internet geek."

"Pots and kettles," Wendy said sweetly. "And get your ass up, seriously, there are sandwiches from the deli down the block and I put crushed peppermint candy in the brownies—"

"Finally used up the leftover candy canes?" she asked.

"No, I still have a box, but if the brownies are good that'll take care of them," Wendy said. "You need to get up and tell me if they're good. It's your mission Batgirl, you're my only hope."

"God, you're such a geek," Steph said. "Are you seriously going to make me taste test your experimental brownies? Do you even know how old those candy canes are?"

"No. But you have Bat-training, you can handle being my taste tester. And seriously, pots and kettles. You're the one who recognized the geeky reference, what does that say about you?" Wendy asked, looking way more smug than she should. Steph stuck her tongue out at her.

"I think it means I should stop dating geeks," she said without thinking.

***

Wendy didn't breathe for a few seconds. Steph was just joking around, she'd say something stupid and then they'd go eat and bicker about who got the bed for napping—Steph was curled up in her bed with mussed hair and pillow lines, she kept extra clothes in Wendy's closet and put half of the things on the grocery list, they weren't working and their afternoons plans consisted of hanging out together anyway and oh yeah, Steph had bought her a Valentine. There were good platonic and superhero-related reasons for all of these things but if Steph's wide eyes and sudden silence meant anything…Well. Those might not be the only reasons.

"P-probably you should. Stop. Stop dating geeks." Steph didn't look pissed or freaked out, so Wendy found her courage and faked nonchalance. "I mean, we're awesome, but maybe you can't handle our awesome."

"I can," Steph sassed back, but she looked a little worried. Wendy was going to squeeze her arm for reassurance like usual, but then maybe that wasn't a great idea right now. Steph met her eyes and continued. "I can handle whatever awesome you throw at me because I'm just that great. And I can handle never ending Firefly references and arguing about comic books because let's be real, Firefly is one of the greatest shows of our time and I argue about gymnastics on the internet, so. So."

"So you should keep dating geeks," Wendy said tentatively.

"Yeah, probably," Steph said with a smile and Wendy could feel herself blushing. "It's been working out well so far."

"Yeah," Wendy said weakly. 'Yeah, probably. Um. Can we stop being hypothetical and—"

"—talk about how we're dating?' Steph finished. "We could, or we could go eat brownies and take a nap together and then talk about it."

"Good plan," Wendy said.

"My plans are always good," Steph said with an exaggerated hair toss and seriously, she just put her hands on her hips while still in bed. Wendy just shook her head.

"You're a ridiculous person," Wendy said. " _Ridiculous_ and I'm not going to let you eat any brownies now, oh my god. So ridiculous."

"Guess you'll just have to be your own taste tester then," Steph said cheerfully. "Have fun with that, remember how sketchy that dollar store we bought those candy canes in was, remember that when you bite into that brownie and how you could have had me try them for you instead and remember that when you're in an ambulance—"

"Oh my god, shut up," Wendy begged, shoving her hand over Steph's mouth. "Don't remind me about that store—did you just lick my hand?" Steph's eyes were glittering with laughter and Wendy grimaced. "Oh my god you did, you're so gross, why am I dating you?" Steph licked her hand again and she wiped it on Steph's shirt, grossed out.

"You _like_ me," she said delightedly. "That's why," and then she leaned in and kissed her.


End file.
